Residents at the Villa Charlotte Brontë, perched on a cliff overlooking the Hudson River in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, are still unable to return home following a mudslide caused by rains from Hurricane Irene.

The mudslide occurred Sunday below a walkway that runs along the western side of the 17-unit co-op complex, leaving the structure standing but crippling a portion of the Metro North track that runs below the hillside.

“At 1:30 in the morning, we were awakened by loud knocking on the door and told that we basically had ten minutes to get out,” said Perry Brass, who shares a three-bedroom home with his partner. “We were just herded out on the sidewalk and told to go to a hotel or to stay with a friend.”

Brass, a writer who has lived at the co-op for 18 years, said he’s never had to evacuate before. Until the city’s Department of Buildings gives the all-clear, he and his partner are staying with a friend on the Upper West Side.

Flickr user rbs10025

The Villa Charlotte Brontë in the Bronx.

The 1926 co-op complex appears to have escaped any damage, and residents have been able to return for short periods of time to collect personal effects. But they aren’t allowed to stay, which frustrates homeowner Stephen Seltzer, a high-school English teacher who has lived at the co-op with his wife and dog for two years. “It’s been a scramble and an inconvenience,” he said.

The building department, which issued the order, said engineers hired by the co-op board are determining whether the building is safe for occupancy. There’s no set timetable for when the residents will return, the city agency’s spokeswoman, Jennifer Gilbert, said, “the department will lift the vacate order as soon as the site is deemed safe for occupancy.”

Metro-North spokeswoman Marjorie Anders added there was no cracking in the foundation or the walls of the co-op, a fact that makes residents like Brass wonder why they can’t return home.

“It’s built on solid rock,” Brass said. “I’m not worried about the structure at all in the very least. Not even one percent. I’m worried about the various agencies involved because they can string this out much longer than necessary.”

The Villa Charlotte Brontë was built on Fordham Gneiss bedrock, according to professor and Bronx borough historian Lloyd Ultan. The co-op, named for the English author of “Jane Eyre”, was built in the style of an Italian villa and divided into two buildings separated by a central courtyard.